ver of men, whose advice he
always sought? Such villainy seemed to me to be beyond the art of any
actor, and it certainly seemed to be a superlative degree of crime and
deception impossible in real life. I remembered that he had shown some
uneasiness that night when I started for the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and
there was the card of the notorious undertaker, the ally of some of our
worst criminals. Still, this was not connected with him and could not be
regarded as damaging. When two bachelors are so wedded, is it possible
for one to deceive the other? Married men had before this deceived
clever wives. Could this companion to whom I would have trusted my life
have deserted me at the moment of danger when I lay there overcome by
smoke? Who tossed me from the window? Quickly I put that question to the
nurse.

"There now," she said with a cautioning shake of her pretty head; "if
you are going to keep thinking about that and get all upset, we won't
let you out of here for a year--it was a fireman, perhaps; but what
matters it?"

The bravery of a plain fireman mattered not, I thought. They must save
lives as a business; chums, friends, they may slink away and leave you
to a horrible death.

Jim Hosley was all that Tescheron had painted him, and yet there were
doubts in my mind. But these doubts were soon removed.

CHAPTER VII

For nearly five weeks after regaining complete consciousness I lived and
gathered strength in that bare and polished room at the hospital. Dust
found no place to stick there, it was all so slippery, and the flies
were discouraged when they came in and found it so miserably antiseptic.
The food was sterilized and peptonized until there was nothing a fly
could find in my pre-digested tid-bits to snuggle up to--it was just
like licking the plaster off the wall or biting the glazed, enameled
paint on the bed. The enameled iron furniture seemed to be made to order
without cracks, and there were no tidies or fancy work about. Any insect
that came in, slipped around until he figured it was a toboggan slide
and a mighty poor place to spend the day.

"Please send out for all the newspapers containing accounts of the fire
and let me read them," I requested one day soon after my wits improved.

"No, indeed; I shall not. Reading is the worst thing you could do,"
said Hygeia. "You are gaining and must take no risks."

So it went. There was no one to obey me. I brooded over my hard luck.
But life would